The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is the third-largest comedy festival in the world, and well known for it’s diversity. It’s easy to be distracted by the front-runners and big names heading the major shows, but to do so would be to deprive oneself of some less obvious laughs. Nestled snugly among the biggest acts are smaller shows dedicated to providing ample space for amateur comedians looking to test their mettle. Just Kidding! is one such example. Produced by Martha Clark, presented by David Rose and featuring Richard Stubbs, Just Kidding! is a headfirst dive into comedians’ childhoods, in all their embarrassing detail.

As a concept, childhood memories work well as a platform upon which to build some truly side-splitting anecdotes for stand-up. Stories range from sincere to absurd, though the defining factor for all seems to be an element of bloodshed. Of course, kids and violence in the same sentence sometimes goes down like a lead balloon, and a few of the acts would be wise to check that they don’t overstep the delicate balance between hilarious and horrifying. Nonetheless, Just Kidding! seems to deliver many more hits than misses – audience members are frequently giggling and rarely made to feel too uncomfortable.

Perhaps this a particular caveat of a smaller stand-up show, but the audience at Just Kidding! tend towards laughter and enjoyment, even during the show’s weaker patches. A bonus of seeing something less widely known is that the audience more or less knows what it’s in for. Everybody just wants to have as much fun as possible, and the comedians are happy to adapt to provide this. It’s a testimony to the producers that this isn’t the standard all-male white line-up that audiences are used to: instead we are treated to a range of genders, backgrounds, ethnicities and ages for a fuller, more inclusive experience. The set-up, too, is so convincing, that by the end of the show, each audience member is left reflecting on the joy in their own childhoods, no matter where they came from. I cannot recommend this show enough.

Back by popular demand, Just Kidding! will be running exclusive sessions on Sunday 15th and Sunday 22nd of April. Don’t miss out!

It was a huge privilege to be a juror at the 2017 Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia, held here in Melbourne. Not only did I get to judge some mind-blowing new films, I was also treated to a range of Czechoslovak classics that had managed to slip by my radar. You can read an excerpt from the closing night presentation here, and a brief introduction to my experience of Czech and Slovak cinema here.

A selection of my favourite films from the 2017 Melbourne International Film Festival.

As the 66th Melbourne International Film Festival draws to a close, I’ve selected a number of films which sat above the rest. Here are my personal highlights from the festival.

The Endless

From director-duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Resolution, 2012; Spring, 2014) comes an enticing horror film. It’s found-footage horror without the found-footage, it’s abstract but penetrable. As with their first feature Resolution, the brothers have created something that with toys with and eschews classical conventions while also acting as general commentary on cinema itself. The Endless is terrifying, exciting and very, very clever. Best of all, it was made on a very small budget that is not at all reflected in the film’s high standard of post-production quality.

The Untamed

Taking many of its cues from Andrzej Żuławski‘s Possession (1981), The Untamed is a surreal blend of social drama, sci-fi horror and erotica. Directed by Amat Escalante, this film is just as daring as that combination of genres would suggest. What supposedly inspired this film was a news article about a man who had drowned, and the headline read “Faggot Drowned”. Escalante was apparently so appalled by this that he set out to counter-actively make a film about sex, homosexuality and violence. Perhaps a tentacle-sex alien in rural Mexico is somehow less terrifying than our own capacity for inhumanity.

Spoor

Spoor is one of those curious films that seems to have gone unnoticed by many at the film festival. Directed by Agnieszka Holland, Spoor tells the story of a lonely old Polish woman who has a soft-spot for animals. Unfortunately, rural Poland is a good spot for game hunters who will never stop revelling in the act of killing. Then the hunters begin to drop dead one-by-one, with the only apparent culprits being the woodland creatures themselves. Part eco-warrior film, part murder-mystery, Spoor closely examines a society that is obsessed with consuming meat and dominating the earth .

Celia (1989)

My favourite of all of the retrospective films at MIFF was Ann Turner’s Celia, starring twelve-year-old Rebecca Smart. A relatively hitherto undiscovered Australian gem, Celia explores the relationship between childhood and fear. Set amidst the Cold War paranoia of the 1950s, the film draws parallels between the persecution of the ‘Reds’ and the plight of the rabbits during the national push against the rural rabbit plague. On top of this, ghoulish details from Celia’s nightmarish hallucinations blur the line between real and imagined monsters.

The Silent Eye

Directed by innovative Australian filmmaker Amiel Courtin-Wilson, this experimental documentary plays out like a dreamy musical waltz from start to finish. It captures the lives of two musical pioneers – free jazz maestro Cecil Taylor and dance artist Min Tanaka. The entire film is a series of wordless performances that were shot over three days. The Silent Eye has an incredible inception story – Courtin-Wilson sat outside the notoriously aloof Taylor’s apartment for a week before he was let in, becoming his quasi-carer. What follows is an intimate, abstract ballet that pushes both performers to their emotional and physical limits.

The Best of the Shorts: The Burden, Mrs McCutcheon and Fry Day

I found it impossible to choose just one of these over another, as all three are equally incredible. The Burden, a Swedish stop-motion animation, captures the lives of several groups of anthropomorphic animals in depressing, darkly funny musical vignettes. Each animal chants about loneliness late at night, against the backdrop of an isolating industrial estate. Mrs McCutcheon, on the other hand, is a heart-warming film about gender roles in the context of primary school. It manages to frame a modern political context within a colourful portrait of endearing childhood innocence. Lastly, Fry Day is a provocative reminder of the dangers of entrenched toxic masculinity. Set in the hours before the execution of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, it follows a young female photographer who finds herself caught in a never-ending web of male violence. All three shorts are excellent pieces of cinema that ought to be seen.

And that’s all of my picks for the festival! There are, of course, many films that I haven’t mentioned which are also worth seeing. The Melbourne International Film Festival will return in August next year.

Katherine (Florence Pugh) has been promised in marriage to a much older man (Paul Hilton). She looks startlingly child-like, clad in a white lace wedding dress and delicate veil, as “worthless” as the land she has been sold with. Her husband forbids her from venturing too far from the house, in spite of her love of the outdoors. She is a caged possession, and, curiously, one that seems to bring her captor almost no joy.

Lady Macbeth is quite minimalist – there is little in the way of music or dialogue, and yet it maintains its darkly riveting atmosphere throughout. The film was adapted from the Nikolai Leskov novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk, but to suggest that it has little to do with Shakespeare would be false. One of the film’s greatest strengths is its ability to evoke the characterisation of the original play’s anti-heroine, and, indeed, some of the symbolic narrative moments, without ever mentioning the bard’s name. It is one of those curious films where, without its title, it would likely be read very differently.

The most striking thing we first notice about our protagonist, Katherine, is her perpetual boredom. Confined to a dusty house and trapped in a sexless, loveless marriage, all she can do is drift about aimlessly, perch on windowsills and fall asleep at inappropriate times. The image of her sitting in the centre of a sofa, adorned in a stunning gown and slowly nodding off is a powerful visual motif that gives us a little taste of her permanent, listless apathy. This is a woman who refuses to bow down to a patriarchal ideal, but is also not an innocent. Her violent actions, combined with the oppressive state that she is forced to bear creates a wonderful amorality within the film. Florence Pugh handles the character by walking a perfect line between sympathy and repulsion – she is never fully an innocent, yet she is clearly bursting with repressed sexual desire and lust for life. Stellar performances from the supporting cast are an invaluable asset to this film, including Katherine’s lover (Cosmo Jarvis) but especially Naomi Ackie, who plays the servant Anna. Her quiet, disbelieving horror makes to the perfect witness to Katherine’s terrible crimes. It is also worth noting that this film has a large percentage of black actors in a setting that many contemporary filmmakers have historically used to excuse employing all-white casts. The presence of many black characters does not feel anachronistic here and is artfully unobtrusive, suggesting that representation can be a rather effortless achievement.

Visually, Lady Macbeth is exquisite. The rural country is cold, damp, and muddy, and the house is dry, dusty and far too clean. Melbourne-based cinematographer, Ari Wegner, deserves a mention for her rigorous attention to detail in the composition of each frame. The film is also interwoven with various visual symbols – chiefly, Katherine’s wedding ring. It is the most prominent item of jewelry she wears, and the hand which adorns it is often positioned front-and-centre within a shot. The ring’s meaning is changed as it moves through the film – from a symbol of entrapment within a marriage to broken wedding vows. There is a certain stillness to these moments in the film, which similarly moves from uncomfortable to threatening as familiar scenes are revisited with new twists.

Lady Macbeth is not without fault – the narrative turns will likely be anticipated even by a moderately experienced film-goer – but it remains an example of how to effectively create atmosphere, tension, and utter horror while obscuring its moral politics. This is a film without a true villain, a true hero, or a reasonable line between right and wrong, and therein lies its power.

The Childhood of a Leader begins with the sounds of an orchestra warming up. A conductor’s voice cuts through the cacophony – “Okay, let’s try this please”. Cut to a title card with the word ‘Overture’ as powerful music swells with the anticipation of the spectator. This film marks the directional debut of actor-turned-director Brady Corbet, and he certainly doesn’t hold back. Indeed, as a directional debut, the phrase “let’s try this” is a neat summary. Whether the film follows through on its ambitious premise, however, is another matter.

Based on a Jean-Paul Sartre novel of the same name, The Childhood of a Leader relies on its synopsis being quite possibly its biggest draw – a portrait of a young boy who is destined to become a fascist dictator. The aforementioned orchestral score, penned by the masterful Scott Walker, thrills us with its dramatic tones and promises a suitably grand film to follow. Aside from the musical score, the film’s other technical marvel is the unorthodox use of the camera. During quiet scenes it is still, but during more tumultuous moments it sways, circles, rolls and is generally unpredictable. It also sometimes switches to a foggy point-of-view shot that is occasionally ambiguous in its connection to the general narrative. It is this fresh take on the movement of camera, coupled with the unusual subject matter, that truly elevates the film. We know we are about to see something that will evoke the most popular representation of political evil possible, and so the actual film that materialises is rather unexpected. The question of how a child becomes a monster is not at all answered. Instead, The Childhood of a Leader captures a fairly straightforward childhood, and therein lies all its power.

The film is divided into three acts, each culminating with a tantrum. Though structurally such a premise indicates an energetic build-up, the pace of film is, in fact, rather quiet and slow. The tantrums manifest as small moments of explosive behaviour, not nearly as intriguing as one might expect. To substitute, it is the boy’s persistent aura of barely-suppressed rage that drives the film. That, and his unexplained anger towards nearly everyone who crosses his path, especially those closest to him. It is no exaggeration to say that Tom Sweet, who plays the ten-year-old Prescott, carries this film. For one so young he exercises remarkable restraint, easily outshining the highly accomplished adults of the cast – who include Robert Pattinson, Bérénice Bejo, Stacy Martin and Liam Cunningham. Sweet effortlessly turns the character of a spoilt brat into a sympathetic, almost accidental villain.

Prescott’s childhood may be straightforward, but it is by no means ordinary. For starters, this boy enjoys an extremely comfortable life of privilege – in an economic, social and political sense. He casually strolls about an enormous French mansion, complete with staff. He is a passer-by in the life of his father, whose career ties to Woodrow Wilson mark him as an important man. Indeed, at one point an unofficial cabinet meeting is held in the boy’s house (and it truly is his house) in such an intrusive manner that it is easy to see how one so young can become entangled in a sphere of political influence. But Prescott doesn’t seek so much to understand as to control – an idea that resurfaces over and over.

Even the introduction to this child character is beset by violence. He tosses stones carelessly – yet intentionally – at innocent parishioners. Crucially, this is not a story about a child allowed to run amuck – that would be too easy. Prescott is routinely punished for his bad behaviour – the stone-throwing incident results in a display of public humiliation as he is forced to apologise to every parishioner after a nativity play. Similarly, a scene which involves the young boy exposing himself to his father results in an unrelentingly violent beating. Prescott is always testing the waters. He plays at games he does not fully understand with his immature notions of violence, sexuality and emotional cruelty. Yet his sociopathy is an astoundingly effective tool that he wields to manipulate those he knows. What choice does he have? This is a child who only friend is his nurse, a child who endures a permanent loneliness and whose parents are permanently detached.

So, who is the child meant to be? In terms of an actual historical figure, that is. He cannot be Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini, whose collective childhoods were nothing like his. Indeed, he cannot really be any one dictator. He is the perfect amalgamation of a fictional evil-mastermind coupled with the polarising otherness of a child. The enigmatic symbols of red flags during the film’s finale intensify this deliberately equivocal take on history. Perhaps The Childhood of Leader is at its most ambitious during the reveal of the grown up Prescott (Pattinson), with his uncannily twitching eyes and illogical orders. It is only by transposing the behaviour of a young boy onto an adult that we can truly see the monstrous child for what it is.

One of the first things our protagonist in Their Finest learns is that truth can be twisted for film, and indeed, has to be. This is a brilliant set-up for exploring two distinct ideas – of forgotten women in wartime and of the distortion of reality through film.When it comes to charm, Their Finest is practically bursting with it. The basic premise is this: set in the 1940s, Gemma Arterton plays Catrin Cole, a former secretary who is appointed as a scriptwriter to work on a propaganda film about the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk.

Catrin is based loosely on the real-life Diana Morgan, a Welsh screenwriter who is mostly associated with her work for Ealing Studios. Catrin is first commissioned to write the “slop”, that is, the women’s dialogue in the film. She is forced to endure a relentless barrage of casual misogyny, from the fact that she will not be credited for her work to simply not being taken seriously by actors and producers alike – “and obviously we can’t pay you as much as the chaps”, remarks Roger Swain (Richard E. Grant) rather coldly. Yet carry on she does, and mid-way through a remarkable shift occurs as she begins to realise that her work is indispensable.

The film-within-the-film is being developed for propaganda purposes, and as such a suitable story about working-class heroes must be located. Head writer Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin) believes he’s found one when he learns of two twin sisters who supposedly stole their alcoholic father’s boat in order to join the legendary Dunkirk rescue. Upon investigation by Catrin, it becomes clear that the real story is not quite so heroic. Indeed, the film’s presentation of these two poor, humble women starkly contrasts with the glamorised retelling of their story that later emerges. Catrin extracts the bare elements of truth from their narrative in order to appeal to the producers – a clear example of how reality is distorted in the cinema. Even her fabricated story is further twisted – characters are added, removed, roles are changed – until the original tale is unrecognisable. Such is the nature of cinema, Their Finest seems to say, for better or for worse.

There is, all the same, a present sympathy for the restrictive nature of working on a propaganda film. After all, many of the changes are out of the screen-writers’ hands, forced upon them by government bodies, or made necessary due to public perception of the roles of men and women. A hilariously clueless American RAF pilot is forced to join the cast, causing major (and humorous) delays with his inability to act at all. Luckily, the rest of the fictional cast is very competent, none more so than Ambrose Hilliard (Nighy). Hilliard is an aging actor who is better remembered for the past glory he achieved as a young man: he is a character of delicate pride, a thespian in every sense. When he is asked to play the role of drunken Uncle Frank, he refuses as he is repelled by the idea of an old man being played for laughs. It is only through Catrin’s careful persuasion that he eventually agrees to the part – and his eventual devotion to her is wonderfully paternal. Hilliard himself is a distinctly British character, with a few odd quirks and an undeniable charm that worms its way into even the iciest of hearts.

Their Finest is packed with what may be one of the best-known casts of the year. Lead superbly by Gemma Arterton and supported by Bill Nighy, Richard E Grant, Helen McCrory and Rachel Stirling, this is a film that although uncomplicated, manages to throw some surprising punches. The set pieces lend each scene a delightful tea-and-biscuit quietude and earnestness. The resulting sense of comfort becomes sorely needed as certain elements of the story take a turn for the worse. This is a war drama after all, and death thwarts happiness, purity and love. Death comes suddenly, it is shocking and often gory. One particular scene sees Catrin nearly hit by an airstrike. She is shocked to find human limbs scattered around her, until she recognises them as parts from shop-window dummies, laughing with relief. Then, she finds the real bodies. There could not be a better summing-up of the wartime experience of women – staggering from fear to absurdity to grief in rapid waves of raw emotion.

One death, however, plays out almost like a tragicomedy. Catrin’s lover stumbles unknowingly into direct danger, lacking any kind of peripheral vision that spurs an urgent need for the spectator to cry behind you! in pantomimic fashion. Despite the utterly silly circumstances of his death, the resulting spell of grief is as touching and believable as possible. Arterton carries the role with a dignified sort of restraint that allows just enough flexibility to convey her sadness without resorting to petty wallowing. Catrin is the definition of a leading woman; her final victory is the ability to rewrite the roles of the twin sisters to inspire women in cinemas forever. Though simple in style, Their Finest is both elegant and incredibly funny, destined to enamour even the stoniest heart.

How does one make a documentary film about a tragedy for which there will never be a satisfying culprit? Quite simply, one engages instead with the subconscious effect the tragedy had on the local populace. Enter Casting JonBenet, a film by Australian director Kitty Green, who uses an alternative angle to dissect an already convoluted story.

The film uses the premise of an audition for a ‘JonBenet’ film as the catalyst to getting its actors talking on the subject. Wisely, Casting JonBenet avoids pointing the finger at any one suspect. Instead, it allows those auditioning (deliberately chosen for their loose connections to the actual incident) to point hundreds of fingers in wild, strange, and often completely illogical directions. Their anecdotes are touching, flawed, sometimes disturbing and sometimes hilarious. They share a common trait: a human response to a cold and brutal murder. Most importantly, their stories reveal that the gossip surrounding JonBenet does not entirely evade reality – it is in fact the only truth the public will ever know.

There is an incredible surrealism to the production. Each actor is fully costumed, and surrounded by a full set. Their anecdotal evidence is punctuated by scenes wherein each one recreates the events leading up to, or following the murder. Through the metaphor of each actor imposing their experience on the part, we realise that a similar phenomenon has happened to the Ramsey family since the day of JonBenet’s death. These scenes appear highly stylised, which perhaps renders the pure emotion of the actors even more heartbreaking – many of them knew the Ramseys, or have experience with death. The film goes further, and touches on the cultural nightmare of child pageants, and the woes of sexualising children.

What this astounding documentary highlights is that sometimes what remains in the aftermath of a crime is just as horrifying as the crime itself. In every attempt to reenact the murder, we see a glimmer of what might have been, the endless possibilities of an unsolved case. Casting JonBenet is above all else a cautionary tale, a warning against the potential dangers brought about by domestic malaise.